The power of Racket, particularly it's ability to compose of map, fold, and filter, is exactly what I need. I'm not sure the R library is particularly transferable to Racket though, but I'll need to study it more to be sure. I'll start down the path of implementing a few relational algebra primitives over a generalised dataset structure (well, an assoc list) and see how far that gets me. I'll keep the list informed though.<div> Thanks,<div>Simon.</div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 7 November 2012 05:38, Matthias Felleisen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:matthias@ccs.neu.edu" target="_blank">matthias@ccs.neu.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br> Perhaps the right approach is to migrate/adapt/port the R library to Racket?<br> <br> That way you get what you need, plus experience in building a DSL, plus the power and speed of Racket.<br> <div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br> <br> <br> <br> On Nov 5, 2012, at 11:32 PM, Asumu Takikawa wrote:<br> <br> > On 2012-11-06 15:22:49 +1100, Simon Haines wrote:<br> >> As part of my work, I frequently have to 'shape' multi-dimensional<br> >> datasets. This is reasonably easy to do in Racket and I'm thinking<br> >> about pulling together some of the functions I use into a library.<br> >> Before I do this though, I was wondering if there is any similar work I<br> >> can build upon, or perhaps use to guide me.<br> >><br> >> [...]<br> >><br> >> I haven't worked out the details yet, and I'm not sure the above will<br> >> work the way I want it to. But I've had a quick look at Microsoft's<br> >> Scientific DataSet ([1]<a href="http://sds.codeplex.com/" target="_blank">http://sds.codeplex.com/</a>), but it lacks the<br> >> composability I'm used to with Racket. Is anyone aware of any similar<br> >> work that does this, or that I could use as a guide?<br> ><br> > I don't know about Racket, but have you seen the 'reshape' library in R?<br> > It's very flexible and is probably one of the state of the art designs<br> > in this space.<br> ><br> > Here's a journal article describing its design:<br> > <a href="http://www.jstatsoft.org/v21/i12/paper" target="_blank">http://www.jstatsoft.org/v21/i12/paper</a><br> ><br> > and its website:<br> > <a href="http://had.co.nz/reshape/" target="_blank">http://had.co.nz/reshape/</a><br> ><br> > Cheers,<br> > Asumu<br> </div></div><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">> ____________________<br> > Racket Users list:<br> > <a href="http://lists.racket-lang.org/users" target="_blank">http://lists.racket-lang.org/users</a><br> <br> </div></div></blockquote></div><br></div>